Vote on-line for a fruit orchard in Hondo Community Garden!

Visit: www.communitiestakeroot.com

and vote for New Mexico Alliance for Children and the Hondo Community Garden.

Ruidoso Earth Day - Official Site

 

Ruidoso Earth Day - Official Site

Sustainable Agriculture

Much like Michael Reynolds creating the concept of living in an earthship home, here is a man some may not have heard of, John Jeavons.

Definitely worth checking out if you are into vegetable gardens:

www.bountifulgardens.org

www.growbiointensive.org

google John Jeavons for a number of articles and background information on the man and concept of bioitensive gardening.

Six Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World

www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html

July's Topic: Rainwater Harvesting

Since it is the start of Monsoon Season here in the Southern Rocky Mountains, I thought it would be a good time to get some info out about collecting rainwater and snow melt off our roofs. There has been a resurgence in this over the last few years around Cloudcroft as the water table has dropped and folks wanted an alternative to drilling deeper wells which is very expensive. Thinking back to this time last year; Ruidoso experienced the flooding of streams and rivers which washed out bridges, sewer lines and flushed out septic tanks. Water supply was contaminated for quite some time afterwards. Even when public water is safe to drink, the high mineral content and the sometimes too high concentration of chlorine cause people (including myself) to flock to the water machines. Collecting water off your own home can be a fantastic investment in cleaner water for your house plumbing, for your family to drink and for the garden during those drier times.

The Smokey Bear Ranger District of the Lincoln National Forest sees the benefit. They are in the process of installing seamless gutters on the Engine Bay to feed a 5,000 gallon water storage tank which will be used to fill the fire engines, water the grass and clean fire hose, trucks, and equipment. If you are interested in seeing this project, feel free to contact the Ranger Station at 901 Mechem Drive in Ruidoso or call 575-257-4095.

Calculate how much water you can harvest: 1" of rain will produce 0.625 gallons of water per square foot of roof. So if you have a 1,000 square foot roof, you will collect 625 gallons in an inch of rain.

Of course it doesn't take very long to fill your water tanks during the monsoon season, but you do want to figure out how much water storage you will need in order to make it through the long dry seasons. This is where a lot of folks decide to harvest rain water: for certain uses (i.e. landscaping only), or as a supplement to their well; and also what measures they can take for water conservation.

Phil Monfette of Cloudcroft Water Tanks is a great local resource. He delivers and has competitive prices and good advice for tank set up. www.ineedawatertank.com 1-800-603-8272.

If you are looking to use catchment water for drinking Phil also carries the British Berkefeld Water Filtration System.

Earthship Biotecture builds a Water Organizing Module (WOM) which is a panel with multple filters and a DC pump which is a good way to filter your catchment water prior to entering your home plumbing from the storage tanks. http://www.earthship.net/ "Water From The Sky" is a good book and Michael Reynolds' designs for grey water and black water botanical cells take water conservation to the extreme-Good stuff!

http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/ is an incredibly indepth site to check out Brad Lancaster's info on the subject of harvesting rain water and strategies of wise water use in dry climates.

Dan's Nogal Earthship launched Spring 2009

See the full story now at:  dansnogalearthship.blogspot.com